PRELIMINARY NOTE ON YOGA	17
Probably the idea was suggested by the noise heard on closing
the ears with the hands, to which HYP. IV. 82 refers.
24. Yogie works, in common with the Tantrass often refer
to a theory of cosmogony of which the leading idea is as
follows. The Purusa, Absolute Spirit, Para Siva, or Brahma,
and the Prakrti, identified with the Supreme Sakti, are
eternally coexistent. Like Purusa, Prakrti is to be conceived
as both unqualified and qualified; through Her universal
presence as the principle of cosmic Bliss, Purusa reveals
Himself in all finite being. Essentially they are two in one
and one in two. Creation begins when from Him as affected
by Her, i.e. as niskdla, there issues the primal Bindu or c drop'
(the dot representing the final nasal sound at the end of the
mystic syllable Orh). The same idea is sometimes expressed
more fully by the statement that Prakrti by contact with
Purusa becomes spiritualized (cin-matra), and in an effort
towards creation She becomes solidified and changes into the
primal Bindu. In the latter Siva and Sakti exist together in
an as yet undissolved union, shrouded in the bonds of Maya,
bearing the potentialities of cosmic creation, continuance, and
dissolution. It is imagined as existing in the form of a grain
of gram or pulse in the Sahasrfira of the microcosm (see
above, § 19), where it composes the Void (§ 20) or Brahma-
pada there. This primal Bindu—under the influence -of
Time, according to some—divides itself into three,, a gross or
seminal Bindu, the germ of the material universe3 a subtle
Bindu which contains the gunas or modes of matter (the
well-known Sattwa3 Rajas, and Tamas), which is termed Nada,
and a supreme Bindu. Nada literally means e sound', and
denotes or is denoted by the semicircle under the bindw or dot
on the syllable Oih (*^t~). From the Bindu as it thus
divides itself arises an inarticulate sound styled Sabda-
Brahman, £ Speech-Brahman \ from which emerge, according
to some, the three cosmic Powers of Knowledge, Will, and
Action: others derive from it the genesis of the material
principle of the finite universe, Mahat or Buddhi, and its
evolutes. The theories of cosmic evolution that are connected
with all this are extremely complicated and obscure, and
c